Old Photos
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散文翻譯：水月·《老照片》
Old PhotosShui Yue
Looking at a pile of old photos, I couldn't help feeling rather regretful.
I've never got into the habit of sorting out photos. However, it's almost a habit of mine, a bad habit at that, to have photos taken thoughtlessly. Thus, like the saying “many a little makes a mickle”, photos have been piling up in my childhood to womanhood. In spite of that, those black-and-white pictures taken in my early years are scarcely kept, except a few survivals regarded as antiques. A bald baby picture of me that I treasured, the only one left, is now missing.
Familiar faces flash one by one before my eyes. Though the world is so small and we all live in it, yet we are alienated by physical and psychological distances, some smaller, some larger. With the passage of time, one cannot, regretfully, relive it with the same feeling as one had in the picture. What one can retrieve from the old photos is but a fraction of the past joy.
One takes pictures with different persons in different time and places. They fill one with nostalgia in various degrees – some more, some less, and others none. That's why one has conflict feelings towards the old photos. Still kept with the current ones, they are even less favored than a daily-used cup, which is always close to the owner. These photos, yellowish with time, are your valuables after all, something you cannot bear to part with. You can move house, leaving behind what you don't want, but how can you abandon yourself that is part of each photo?
How these fragments of thought influence me! Photos retain our images rather than our sentiment, which may not remain. The image is always there, but not its owner, whom the photo cannot keep, neither can it the event.
Of course, there are some of the photos still retaining my affection, such as those taken with my family members, with favorite playmates, fellow girl-students, and best friends, not only in pictures but also in my life and heart.
Now, since I have learned all this, I'll not allow myself to be included offhand in a photo taken with others. I'll make sure that the friendship can last before I take a photo with somebody.
（陳文伯 譯）
老照片
水月
看著一堆老照片，心里掠過一絲絲歉意。
一向沒有整理照片的習慣，卻有喜歡盲目拍照的毛病。從小到大，聚沙成塔，所以家里放著不少照片。可惜的是，孩提時代的“古董”黑白相片甚少，嬰兒時僅存的一張禿頭美照也已不知去向。
照片里一張張熟悉的面孔，雖然都同在這個小小的世界里生活著，只是地與地、心與心的距離，或遠或近。時光流逝，總會有此情不再的遺憾，當時的歡樂，也只能在照片里尋回一點一滴。
在不同的時空里，跟不同的人合照，有些情還在，有些卻不。所以對一些老照片的感情不無矛盾。它們跟其他照片一起藏在家里，但不會比一只杯子受寵，因為杯子能天天親近主人。可這一張張泛黃的照片，卻也是最難舍的家當，讓人不忍丟棄。家可以搬，東西可以丟，但誰又曾忍心把照片里的自己拋棄！
對于這些剎那回憶，我又能怎樣呢！照片里攝住的是軀殼，是影像，它沒能攝住人的情， 又無法留住什么人、什么事。
至于情還在的舊照片，比如家人的、兒時玩伴的、同窗姐妹的、好朋友的等等，當然，也會像這些人與我的情誼一樣共存，不只是在照片里，還在心坎中、生活里。
如今，學懂了不讓自己隨便地擠進照片里，我和你照個相兒，只因此情可再。
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